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In 2005, Boston clothing designer Antonio Ennis found himself the target of the city's politicians and local ministers, who said his "Stop Snitchin'" gear was creating a code of silence.

When one of his employees, Edwin Duncan, was found Dec. 13, 2005 murdered in a studio basement along with three young rappers, Ennis bowed to the community pressure and stopped selling the infamous apparel.

Six years later, with only 19 of 53 of the city's murders solved, Ennis says it's evident that getting rid of T-shirts wasn't the answer to stopping the street violence.

"It's just convenient that at that time my shop was across from the courthouse," he remembered after attention was brought to his store in 2005 when alleged offenders wore the "Stop Snitchin'" shirts during hearing at Dorchester District Court.

After the slogan's popularity died down in Boston, "several people went forward to tell what they know or testify for something and got killed. Several people have done that and they are dead. So to me the whole "Stop Snitchin'" thing is really a cycle of violence," Ennis said.

A fixture of Boston's streets since the 1980s, when he was a member of the city's first notable gangster-rap group, The Almighty RSO - Ennis said he eventually removed the shirts from the shelves of his Codman Square shop, others followed suit.

"I took the shirts off the shelf and a lot of people took notice to that and they started taking their shirts off the shelf," he recalled. "I'm from the streets, dudes know me from the streets. They thought well if E's coming off of that I'll chill out and some people started going forward (to the police) because they wanted to go forward before and now they felt more comfortable."

At the same time, the Boston Police Department worked to better promote their anonymous Text-A-Tip program and the Crime Stoppers program. But Ennis said police didn't do a good job protecting those who came forward.

"If somebody snitches for the authorities and the authorities don't protect that person and send them right back into the jungle in which they came from, isn't that still creating violence? There has to be a better method. You can't want people to come forward and you throw them right back. Because everyone knows how that goes. No one wants to walk the streets and be known as a snitch."